Canadians: Tell your lawmakers to defend SK’s right to stop collecting carbon tax
CALGARY, Alberta (LifeSiteNews) — Alberta Premier Danielle Smith is legally challenging Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s carbon tax.
On October 31, Smith announced that Alberta filed an application for a judicial review of the constitutionality of the carbon tax, arguing that Trudeau’s home heating oil exemption created a double standard.
“Last year, Ottawa decided Canadians in the East deserved a three-year break from paying the carbon tax on their home heating costs,” Smith declared. “While we’re happy for these Canadians, Alberta, Saskatchewan and other provinces who heat their homes with natural gas have been deliberately excluded from these savings.”
“Albertans simply cannot stand by for another winter while the federal government picks and chooses who their carbon tax applies to,” she continued. “Since they won’t play fair, we’re going to take the federal government back to court.”
Last October, Trudeau suspended his infamous carbon tax on home heating oil for the next three years. However, as the press release pointed out, less than 1% of homes in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba use home heating oil compared with 18%-42% of homes in the Maritime provinces.
When the exemption was announced, many pointed out the discrepancy and argued that all Canadians should be able to heat their homes without an additional tax.
Additionally, Trudeau’s decision came as Atlantic Liberals are beginning to vote alongside Conservatives to end the carbon tax. The Atlantic provinces have voted primarily Liberal since 2015, but recent polls reveal that many Canadians living there plan to vote Conservative.
Over the past year, Western provinces have repeatedly asked Trudeau to extend the exemption to all forms of home heating, a request he has denied.
As a result, Alberta’s application requests that the court declare that the exemption is both “unconstitutional and unlawful.”
“The application argues that Ottawa’s carbon tax exemption for heating oil is unconstitutional and inconsistent with the Government of Canada’s stated purpose for enacting the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act,” it argues.
“While the Supreme Court of Canada previously found the Greenhouse Gas Pollution Pricing Act was constitutional, it found that Canada’s jurisdiction to regulate greenhouse gas emissions was limited to the ability to create minimum national standards for carbon pricing for the purpose of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.”
“Alberta strongly opposes the federal carbon tax exemption on heating oil, as the federal government is no longer creating minimum national standards that apply evenly across the country and is instead creating a regime that favours one region and fuel type over others,” the province declared.
As LifeSiteNews previously reported, an October Parliamentary Budget Officer report found that Trudeau’s carbon tax is costing Canadians hundreds of dollars annually as government rebates remain insufficient to compensate for the increased fuel prices.
The increased costs are only expected to rise. A recent report revealed that a carbon tax of more than $350 per tonne is needed to reach Trudeau’s net-zero goals by 2050.
Currently, Canadians living in provinces under the federal carbon pricing scheme pay $80 per tonne, but the Trudeau government has a goal of $170 per tonne by 2030.
On April 1, Trudeau increased the carbon tax by 23 percent despite seven of 10 provincial premiers and 70 percent of Canadians pleading with him to halt his plan.
In fact, not only is the carbon tax costing Canadian families hundreds of dollars annually, but Liberals have admitted that the carbon tax has only reduced greenhouse gas emissions by 1 percent.
However, despite this and appeals from both politicians and Canadians, Trudeau remains determined to increase the carbon tax.
The Trudeau government’s current environmental goals, which are in lockstep with the United Nations’ 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, include phasing out coal-fired power plants, reducing fertilizer usage, and curbing natural gas use over the coming decades.
The reduction and eventual elimination of so-called “fossil fuels” and a transition to unreliable “green” energy has also been pushed by the World Economic Forum, the globalist group behind the socialist “Great Reset” agenda in which Trudeau and some of his cabinet are involved.
Canadians: Tell your lawmakers to defend SK’s right to stop collecting carbon tax